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Goto Leads to Faster Code
pdoubleya writes "There's an article over at the NY Times (registration required) about Kazushige Goto, the author of the Goto Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines (BLAS, see the wiki); his BLAS implementation is used by 4 of the current 11 fastest computers in the world. Goto is known for painstaking effort in hand-optimizing his routines; in one case, "when computer scientists at the University at Buffalo added Goto BLAS to their Pentium-based supercomputer, the calculating power of the system jumped from 1.5 trillion to 2 trillion mathematical operations per second out of a theoretical limit of 3 trillion." To quote Jack Dongarra, from the University of Tennessee, "I tell them that if they want the fastest they should still turn to Mr. Goto."" Ever get the feeling someone wrote an article merely for the pun?
Although he also writes fast code, Mr. Bluescreen was criticised for the poor stability of his code.
It was CIS 150, C++ was the language of the day (pascal before, java after.) I was taking an exam that was all coding. I remember extensive use of GOTO from my commodore days, so I used one in a test (the objective was to code something with as few lines as possible)
;)
I had the shortest working code in the class but the arse hole teacher failed me for it. Said something like "we don't teach goto for a reason. Yeah, it's in the book, but don't ever use it!"
Jerk. I should post his phone number on slashdot
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
...To see who actually reads the article.
;)
Judging from the replies...not many people
Goto Considered Helpful?
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
DEC had an ultra-optimized math library (calculations on arrays, Fourier transforms, etc.), improved over decades by generations of PhDs. There were different versions of the routines for the different generations of CPUs, for the different cache sizes of a same model, maybe even for various speeds of RAM. Needless to say, the simple fact of linking against that library instead of the standard one improved the speed of math intensive code by a good 10 to 20 percent (those numbers out of my fuzzy memory, but that far from insignificant).
Add to that compilers that were producing top-notch machine language for the target architecture (producing images that ran twice as fast as what gcc gave you at best), CPUs that were spanking the rest of the world as far as floating-point performance was concerned, and you can understand why the scientific community has kept using Alphas for so long.
I believe you are referring to Kazushige's cousin, Mr. Gosub.
Considering the number of scientists who have been looking at this over a number of years, I think it really is a credit to Goto's work. Optimizing at this level is very challenging work on modern processors.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
From the article:
"Robert A. van de Geijin, a computer scientist who works with Mr. Goto at the Texas Center,..."
All right, a Japanese programmer named Goto, working with a non-Japanese guy name Geijin. That's too much.
Oh, Goat-toe hell you spoilsport!
My favorite ever comment was, "If I ever saw this in the real world, I'd fire you" attached to an "A" test paper with a programming question on it I'd managed to reduce to one line of nearly incomprehensible recursion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
If wife has headache, GOTO sleep
If boss is on vacation, GOTO strip bar for long lunch
If in-laws are coming over, GOTO work and pretend there is a critical problem that requires your presence all night
If technical conference is in Vegas, GOTO it
loads of examples.
If work is boring, GOTO slashdot to kill an hour or two
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
From the article: Some programmers have suggested that Mr. Goto has not joined the open-source movement because he wants to protect his secrets and strategies from competitors. That is not so, he said recently, noting that the Goto BLAS software is freely available for noncommercial use. And he said he was preparing an open-source version.